Stakeholders in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector must collaborate to ensure an improvement in the delivery of WASH services in the various communities across the country, Dr Gilbert Buckle, a public health expert has urged.

Speaking in Accra at a national learning exchange platform organised by the IRC and Water Aid on Wednesday, he said working together in the WASH system would support effort to remove impediments affecting the effective delivery of WASH services for sustainable development.

The event was to share experiences of initiatives in the Asutifi North and Bongo District in the Brong Ahafo Region and Upper East Region respectively to demonstrate how strong local system could help in the realisation of Goal Six of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which was focused on ensuring access to water and sanitation for all by 2030.

For this to happen, Dr Buckle said there was the need for an innovation in the development of leadership and management plan that promote collaboration between stakeholders at the local level.

He, therefore, called for the institution of comprehensive processes and procedures that would enable access to clean water and safe sanitation services for public health and well-being and for the environment.

Mr Anthony Mensah, Director of the Environmental Health and Sanitation Unit, Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources, noted that Ghana recorded a marginal improvement in access to water from 15 per cent in the past few years to 21 in 2018 while access to sanitation dropped.

He therefore called for an integrated approach in addressing challenges that confronted the provision of sanitation services.

Country Director of IRC, Ghana, Vida Duti said collective effort and funding were required to deliver targets across the entire water cycle to ensure universal access to safe and affordable drinking water for all by 2030.

She said the comprehensive district wide approach focuses on improving advocacy and communication strategy to promote sustainable access to WASH services.

Country Director of WaterAid, Abdul-Nashiru Mohammed said the district based initiatives in the two districts was to enhance organised collaboration among the various agents in the WASH system.

Dubbed District Wide Approach (DWA), he said the initiative makes use of support from external partners and local government in a number of districts to work towards providing effective sustainable WASH services in targeted districts.

Among other things, Mr Mohammed said the initiative would ensure efficient service delivery, effective targeting, capacity strengthening, and research, advocacy and policy influence which would in the end ensure that everyone everywhere has access to sustainable WASH services.